Soiled and/or stained shoes, especially athletic shoes, have been a problem since the advent of shoes. Traditional attempts at cleaning soiled and/or stained shoes have included washing the soiled shoes manually in wash basins and/or sinks, with a conventional garden hose, clapping the shoes together to attempt to dislodge clay, mud and other dirt fixed to the shoes, or using a conventional washing machine with or without detergent being added. However, consumers have encountered less than satisfactory cleaning by these conventional methods. Further, consumers have witnessed the damage to the shoes as a result of employing these “harsh” conventional methods, especially when washing the shoes in a conventional washing machine. Examples of such problems include, but are not limited to, poor, less than satisfactory cleaning of the shoes and/or the tendency of water and/or detergent to remove tanning agents and/or fatliquors from leather in the shoes resulting in loss of stability and/or softness and/or suppleness and/or flexibility.
Cleaning represents a significant and largely unmet consumer need for shoes, especially shoes that contain canvas, nylon, mesh, synthetic leather and/or natural leather surfaces, particularly leather-containing shoes, such as athletic shoes. Athletic shoes are worn not just for athletic use but also for casual use both indoor and outdoor. The outdoor and athletic use of these shoes can lead to significant soiling of these shoes. For instance, dirt, mud, and clay soils may soil these when worn outdoors for either sporting or casual use. Similarly, grass stains and soils may soil these shoes under similar circumstances. A particular problem for cleaning shoes is that unlike many “dress” or formal shoes, the outer parts of the athletic shoes may consist of leather or fabrics or combinations of the two. Most formal shoes have a glossy smooth outside surface and are generally not as heavily soiled as athletic shoes often are. Thus for the formal shoes, wiping with a damp cloth is often sufficient to clean these shoes under most circumstances. Unlike most formal shoes with glossy smooth outside finishes, the athletic shoes are more heavily soiled and that soil is often more difficult to remove because of the many types of outer coverings for the athletic shoes. In particular, it is difficult to simply wipe the off the soil from the fabric parts in these shoes. Similarly the soil from the rough or uneven plastic, synthetic or rubber surfaces found on the bottom portions of these shoes is also often difficult to remove. As such, a better method for cleaning athletic shoes is needed and is highly desirable.
Further, while not wishing to be bound by theory, it is believed that the conventional washing of shoes in water and/or detergent-containing water has deleterious effects on the shoes, especially leather-containing shoes because among other reasons, the loss of fatliquors and/or oils and/or tanning agents such as Chromium from the leather.
Conventional washing of shoes in an automatic clothes washing machine damages the shoes as a result of the shoes coming into contact with the agitator in the washing machine and/or walls of the washing machine and/or with other articles, such as other shoes, being washed. Without being bound by theory, it is believed that such contact can damage the paint on the shoes as well as damage other surfaces and/or components of the shoes.
Similarly, it has been found that for canvas or other cloth shoes, the removal of clay or mud soils is particularly difficult and often more difficult to remove than those same soils on leather surfaces of athletic shoes. It has been found that the conventional washing treatments can work reasonably well at times for clay/mud/dirt on canvas or other fabric containing shoes, when shoes are composed of only canvas or other fabrics.
However, certain types of shoes, particularly athletic shoes, often contain both canvas/cloth and leather. Thus, heretofore there has been an unacceptable tradeoff between the need to protect the leather while cleaning the canvas. Moreover, even if a consumer's athletic shoes are composed only of leather, or only of canvas, it would inconvenient to the consumer to purchase separate products for canvas and leather containing shoes.
Accordingly, there is a need for compositions for pre-treating canvas/cloth and leather shoes and methods employing such compositions to treat canvas/cloth and leather that produce desired cleaning results on canvas portions of shoes without damaging the leather portion of shoes.
While other methods have been proposed, none appear to work sufficiently well to meet the needs of the consumer. For example, JP 58-067,777, teaches a spray pre-treat for canvas shoes comprising both a starch and carboxymethycellulose (CMC) gives a benefit. However, it suffers from a numbers of problems. First, this patent publication teaches nothing as to how to avoid the highly undesirable spotting that may occur especially on non-canvas surfaces such as leather, particularly darker colored leather, when CMC is applied to the shoes. Moreover, nothing is taught as to the molecular weight or the degree of substitution for either the carboxymethycellulose or the starch that are required for optimum performance. Similarly, no provision is made for the incorporation of other highly desired properties such as disinfection, faster drying, and odor removal.
Furthermore, consumers may wish to avoid the use of spray product and make the treatment of the shoes an integral part of the wash process. The above patent publication makes no allowance for this by providing a method for pre-treating shoes as an integral part of the wash process such that a soil resistance benefit is given.
Yet furthermore, this patent publication does not teach methods and compositions wherein treating compositions and cleaning compositions work together so as to produce a benefit unexpected based on the performances of either alone.